‘Tipsy’ or ‘Hammered’?- Part 1

Would you describe a woman as “tipsy” but a man as “hammered”? The language you choose is likely to be affected by that person’s gender as well as your own. Women tend to use terms that describe others’ intoxication levels as moderate, such as “buzzed” and “tipsy,” according to a study published online today in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. This was true regardless of the level of intoxication. Men tend to prefer words for heavy intoxication, such as “hammered” and “wasted.” “Drinkers use a complex set of physical and cognitive indicators to estimate intoxication,” says Ash Levitt, the study’s lead author. “Understanding this language is important, as these terms reflect levels of intoxication as well as whether individuals are accurately estimating intoxication levels.” Previous research found that women tend to use terms that describe their own intoxication levels as more moderate, while men tend to choose terms describing heavy intoxication. In the new research, Levitt, a research scientist at the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, and his colleagues had 145 undergraduate students participate in a survey in 2007. Participants read vignettes describing people who had been drinking. “Results supported previous research by showing that moderate intoxication terms such as ‘tipsy’ were applied to female vignette characters more than male characters, even when female characters were heavily intoxicated,” Levitt says. “Female participants applied these terms more than male participants.” By contrast, among men, “heavy intoxication terms such as ‘wasted’ were applied to male vignette characters more than female characters,” Levitt says. By Cathy Payne http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/07/10/intoxication-language-women-men/2498445/